EUREKA!!!

[permetaform]

What's your template, what's the script that underlies everything? Or, if you don't have a story you keep telling, maybe there's a story you keep reading. Is there something that underlies all of your favorite fairytales and novels and television shows and fanfics?

~witchqueen by way of latxcvi

I'm encouraging all ya'll to go answer that in her journal...But!

I've figured out why the Sparrington wasn't working!! ::DANCE::

Namely: My 'One True Story' is Opposites Held by Golden Chord. It's pretty much the Pisces zodiac sign (two fish swimming in apart, tied together).

Or in other words, individuals (who are similar) that move in opposite directions but are held inextricably together and are forever circling each other despite themselves...

And, see, the only way that that the they can actively move in different directions is if they have complete identities in their own right. They are similar entities, but *separate*. They aren't joined because they *are* one another (ie. The Coin With Two Heads), rather, they are joined for a reason *beyond* that. They aren't *defined* by each other, be it in opposition or in similarity. They may be 'similar' or 'opposite', but they're not basing themselves on the 'presence' of the other.

And now everything make sense! Because, y'see, Jack and Norrington's existence *are* defined by each other, The Establishment and The Anti-Establishment. And THAT is also why I don't give two hoots about Sirius/Remus, Qui/Obi, Frodo/Sam, and the whole LotRPS!

And it makes the Sands/El, Superman/Batman, and the Qui/Maul make sense! ::DANCE:: YAY! so. incredibly. relieved!

[edit] and this might actually be why I love resurrection!fic so much, what more ultimate proof could you have that a pairing is tied together irrevocably than having them be reborn and finding each other again?

[edit2] y'know, this may be why I'm not especially interested in Jack/Bootstrap fic. Thing is, at this point, Bootstrap is almost purely defined through Jack, with bit here and there from Will and Pintel. But then because Bootstrap is delinated by Jack, I can't reconcile a relationship in my mind. It always feels flat or one-sided.

[edit3] and guede_mazaka totally rocks my OTS. Delivering stuff like The Mexico series and lines like these:

"Sands isn’t a wife, isn’t a soulmate, isn’t a missing half. He doesn’t fill anything that was absent in El; if anything, the little jackass tears out more holes. But then, so does El.
...
He’ll fight to keep that, to have the privilege of snarling and clawing and hurting this one man. And to let Sands snarl and claw and wound him back. He will turn the key in the lock and push open the gate, he will cross through and Sands will follow till they’ve torn themselves into one."

~ from Archetype: Gate


Exactly. ::happysigh::

Comments

[calicokat.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I still have no idea what you're saying, I'm afraid. It still sounds like you're talking about good writing versus bad writing. In good writing characters are never defined by each other. I'm particularly confused because Norrington/Jack, Sands/El, Q/Picard, and Sirius/Remus are all the exact same type of pairing, the more straight laced and quiet guy slashed with a wilder guy who spices them up a little. I don't know anything about Voyager, but... The only difference seems, to me, to be that you've read good fics with one pairing and bad fics with another, as in the hands of the proper storyteller these stories could all turn out in very similar ways. The differences is if the writer chooses to be introspective or plot, aka exterior-situation oriented.

In terms of Qui/Obi or Qui/Maul, I don't see much of a difference there, either, one's a viscious young Sith and the other's a slightly tempremental young Jedi, but I've always thought of Obi Wan and Darth Maul as rather akin to each other, almost two sides of the same coin, both headstrong young padawan under masters who tend to buch the order but have a better sense of control, why one is good and the other bad is where the tension comes in.

I'm interested in what you're saying, but... I also have no clue as to what you're saying. ;-;

[permetaform]

Hmmm... I still have no idea what you're saying, I'm afraid.

::huffs and scratches head:: I get the feeling that we're talking *past* each other. Ok, background questions then: what is your OTS? and fave pairings and pairings you don't care for? What type of stories/character traits do you resonate with?? because I think we're having a 'tomato' argument. (that I'd talked about with firesignwriter here, and amounting to:

"Look! It's has tomatoes!"

"I don't care much for tomatoes."

"But LOOK! It's has TOMATOES!!!!"

and the thing is, I see Norrington/Jack and Sirius/Remus as different from Sands/El and Q/Picard, beyond the normal v. wild dynamic. It's almost *less* to do with the dynamic than the fact that they're defined *beyond* that dynamic.

Again, I think we're looking at these pairings in different ways, coming to these pairings looking for different things and I'm interested to hear where you're coming from because you're reasoning is confusing and a bit opaque to me and I'm getting the feeling that we'd keep talking past each other if I don't know how to address my points to you, from the position you're coming from...

[calicokat.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Okay. Let's see. Well, I guess, weirdly, my OTS is probably the story of the menage a trois. My good friend and I who've been roleplaying together for the past eight years have a weird way of finding three way relationships between our characters creeping up on us... Yohko/Higure/Kuronue, Heero/Kaumi/Duo, Trowa/Subaru+Seshirou, Ky/Sol/Noir... I always end up trying to find those dynamics that make a three way relationship work... There's something a bit perfect about a working menage a trois and I love getting around to seeing how that balances itself out over the course of a story... Angst is better, too, in menage a trois, because somebody's often being asked to choose sides or will just be like "You two, go work it out, I'm not getting into this but I'm here if you need me." Ahhh... good stuff.

As for pairings... Well, I care for most pairings. This is my problem with music too. "What's your favorite type of music?" "Uh..." Because I like what I like and sometimes I don't like things within a type even though it's similar to something else I do like... This may, in fact, be where we're having trouble communicating, because with me, every time, it's the contrast between the whole personality and little quirks between two characters more than it is... Well, more than it is anything else.

I guess I'm still totally missing what you're saying about being defined beyond the dynamic, because to some degree or another every person is defined beyond their dynamic. If you're only defining yourself against one other person--and trust me, I got into a rut of this--then you become an awfully boring person. If you're not going out and having individual experiences, awakening something new in you, and bringing that back to your partner, then the relationship stagnates and fails. I can't see any relationship where the dynamic is the only defining factor. It sounds to me like you only like chracters who have come from wildly different life experiences, but in the case of all four of those pairings the characters have been defined by external circumstances and natrually define themselves withing the relationship as well. I mean, I don't think a (healthy) relationship exists where you can't say that. *scratches head*